Second, brainwave entrainment is a workout for your brain. This means you have to gently ease your way into the process. I recommend that you begin with the 30 minute Alpha Light Meditation for a few days as your meditative component. Also listen to IQ Increase and Beta Relaxed Focus one time each during your day as you work, commute, run errands, etc.
The aim of this study is to identify tendencies in the effectiveness of relaxing audio stimuli that could be verified through further focused experiments. A series of brainwave entrainment (BWE) techniques for inducing relaxation will be presented consisting of different binaural phenomena (BP). The BP will derive from the binaural sine wave beat, widely acknowledged in rhythmic BWE... [Show full abstract]
Turns out, science says there is something to needing “fresh air”—even opening a window can help get more oxygen to your brain, soothing stress. “We live so much of our lives indoors, that when stress hits, one of my go-to techniques is to get outside or open a window,” Dr. Serani says. “Taking in a nice deep breath of crisp fresh air can immediately shift your neurochemistry.” If you’re overwhelmed with work, it can seem hard to take a break; but a quick step outside is even recommended by the American Psychological Association. When you come back, you’ll be recharged and ready to take on the challenge.
The mechanism for this is that when your eyes or ears are exposed to a particular frequency of pulses or beats, the thalamus first distributes this information to the entire brain, including the visual and cerebral cortex where neural activity begins to synchronize to the incoming frequency, producing hemispheric synchronization and a balance of brainwave activity across the brain.
This is an extreme example, naturally, but the idea holds true even in situations that are not as extreme. This ties in very closely with Point #4 above. When you’re wishing to combine meditation and brainwave entrainment, if you’re practicing a meditation technique but not really paying attention to what you’re doing, or perhaps you are performing the technique wrong, whilst allowing your mind to drift off to wherever it takes you, it should come as no surprise that the entrainment track is not helping you achieve a state of meditation. That’s because in fact you aren’t really trying to enter meditation or because you’re specifically engaging in activities that prevent you from getting there.

Women worry more than men do. A study of 166 married couples who kept stress diaries for six weeks found that women feel stress more frequently than men because women tend to worry in a more global way. Whereas a man might fret about something actual and specific—such as the fact that he's just been passed over for a promotion—a woman will tend to worry abstractly about her job, her weight, plus the well-being of every member of her extended family. Keep your anxiety focused on real, immediate issues, and tune out imagined ones or those over which you have zero control, and you'll automatically reduce stress overload.

First, go to the restroom and then drink a glass of water so your body won't be a distraction during the process. Choose a quiet spot and make sure no one is going to disturb you for the 30-60 minutes that your chosen track will last for. Get into a comfortable seated position (don't lay down) so that you will be able to stay awake for the whole process.
When we are mentally active various groups of neurons will be firing and the EEG will look like a jumble of different waves at different frequencies. When we are in a relaxed state, however, our brains settle into a steady rhythm – when fully awake this is the alpha rhythm, which as a frequency of 8-12 hz and other recognizable features. When drowsy our brainwaves slow to the theta range, 6-7hz, and when in deep sleep into the delta range, 4-5hz.
People who meditate regularly enjoy many benefits such as increased sense of well being, happiness, contentment, and far less anxiety that many other people. Some believe that this is due to both hemispheres of the brain being in sync with each other, which meditative practice can provide. Therefore, a goal of using technology to entrain the brain and align the frequencies of the brain hemispheres has become a very interesting avenue of science and experimentation.
It takes slightly more time to practice guided imagery, but this is a great way to leave your stress behind for a while and relax your body. Some find it easier to practice than meditation, as it allows more engagement of the conscious mind. You can focus on imagining relaxing environments you would love to visit, or on memories of your "happy place" for when you're stressed. You can play natural sounds in the background as you practice, to promote a more immersive experience.
The idea behind CBT is this: If you can reframe the way you think about events in your life — for example, instead of panicking over a job change you choose to embrace it, prepare as best you can and seize the opportunity to start fresh — you can literally reduce the stress you wind up feeling from the event. CBT is useful for training us to avoid internal causes of stress, such as “all-or-nothing” thinking, jumping to conclusions, pessimism, having unrealistic expectations for ourselves, always expecting the worst-case scenario, and feeling guilt or shame over events that are out of our control. (11)
There are many ways to reduce tension and relax, but some are more effective than others. Some techniques are difficult to learn while others are challenging to practice. Others have negative consequences that almost outweigh their effectiveness or can create bigger problems. Here are ten stress relievers proven to be among the most effective for the amount of work and time involved. Most can be learned in the time it takes to read this page and will help you to feel more relaxed almost immediately. And even more exciting, the ​stress relief benefits will increase with regular practice. Try as many as you can—there's something here for everyone.
In 1973, biophysicist Dr. Gerald Oster published a famous article in Scientific American titled “Auditory Beats in the Brain”, which found that when two pure tones of varying frequencies were combined, a third rhythmic beat was created which he called binaural or monaural beats. According to Oster, monaural beats occur when two tones are combined and sent through a loudspeaker, while binaural beats occur when stereo headphones are used to deliver each tone separately to each ear. Oster concluded that monaural beats were a more effective form of brainwave entrainment.
Entrainment is like priming the pump of meditation. It doesn’t “cause” meditation any more than pouring that little bit of water into the pump initially “causes” water to appear in the well. The water was already there. The conditions for the pump to do its job just needed to be set up. What entrainment does is to create the conditions and the internal environment typically associated with meditation. You could get to that point without entrainment, certainly, but the entrainment allows you to get there quicker, more consistently, and to remain there for longer periods of time than you would ordinarily be capable of doing on your own.
In other words, you give the well a little taste of what it is you want from it, and then the well responds by delivering more of the same back to you. In the case of the water well, you pour a small amount of water down into the pump. This is known as “priming” the pump. Until you do this the pump does not produce the water you’re looking for. Once you prime the pump it sets up the conditions in which that pump can do its job and the water begins to flow.

Each of us is unique, and what works well for me might be totally useless to you. Generically speaking, there are three types of meditation techniques. There are techniques that take your awareness outwards, techniques that take your awareness inwards, and techniques that do a little of both. People with exceptionally busy minds tend to do better with techniques that take awareness outwards since their minds naturally head that direction anyway. People with more contemplative natures tend to do better with techniques that take you inwards. The combination techniques are a “maybe” for just about anyone, but are usually best used when a person has some experience with meditation under their belt.

Meditation Begins • Mind Chatter Slows Down • Great For Learning & Studying • Creative Ideas Flow • Reverse Brain’s Aging • Habits, Fears, Phobias Melt Away • Calm & Peaceful • First Layer Of Subconscious Mind • Gateway To Deeper Mental States • Advanced Focus • Relaxation Begins • Serotonin • Endorphins • Good For Anxiety, Depression, Stress, Panic • Mind Power • Happiness • Confidence
Practitioners are discovering a number of different areas in which entrainment therapy may bring positive benefits. From managing mental health more effectively through to providing increased mental focus and concentration, it is thought the technique can be adapted according to the specific issues being treated. An improved immune system, enhanced levels of pain management, and a reduction in autoimmune disorders are also thought to be achieved through the therapy, leading many individuals with chronic ill health to consider brainwave entrainment as a non-invasive yet effective therapy.

So if you are interested in using brainwave entrainment music in your own recording, do so with the knowledge that it can only help to improve the quality of your work. But please don’t feel as though your recordings will be insufficient without it (some people do worry about this - unnecessarily). My advice is that if you ever find yourself in a situation where the music you love the most is not available with brainwave entrainment frequencies, don’t ignore your intuition and discard that music. When you find that piece of music that brings your recording to life, go with it whether it has brainwave entrainment frequencies or not. The quality and feel of the music itself are the most important factors.

The Frequency following response (FFR), also referred to as Frequency Following Potential (FFP), is a specific response to hearing sound and music, by which neural oscillations adjust their frequency to match the rhythm of auditory stimuli. The use of sound with intent to influence cortical brainwave frequency is called auditory driving,[39][40] by which frequency of neural oscillation is 'driven' to entrain with that of the rhythm of a sound source.[41][42]